WOW! Excellent first post! There's quite a few of those that look really good. I'm gonna have to look into those. I was there since the beginning of DS, but I missed much of the GBA homebrew scene since I only got into handhelds about 1 year before the DS was released. And it was a year or two after that when I discovered GBAtemp and flashcarts. Thanks for cluing me in to some of the better GBA homebrew.

Its not, I had slow down while drifting in Mario kart even when running off its miniSD! Running from my Slot-1 card is unplayable (some games can be loaded to it via my SCDSOne) I think a EZ-Flash IV is my best bet, the 3-in-1s are a no go for me as I have a DSPhat and the GBA sized ones are not made anymore, besides the EZFlash IV takes miniSDs!!! $30 from DX though, making it 3 times as expensive as the fake/copy/whatever it was Supercard.

I use an M3 Perfect miniSD myself. That slot2 cart plays everything I throw at it awesomely with no slowdown or other silly issues. Too bad they aren't produced anymore and are EXTREMELY hard to find. I use it exclusively for GBA type stuff. I have a CycloDS for DS stuff.

I also have a Supercard minSD, but I am really disappointed with it because of the GBA slowdown and incompatibility issues. I just have it in a GBA SP+, though that unit generally just collects dust as I use my DSlite for everything DS/GBA.

Its not, I had slow down while drifting in Mario kart even when running off its miniSD!

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GBA games do not run off the miniSD card. All GBA files are copied into the Supercard's RAM and executed from there. RAM is faster than SD cards, so the games run, but the Supercard's RAM is just slightly too slow, causing slowdowns in some games. DS games on the other hand are designed to be run from NAND-type media, similar to SD cards, so there it's the speed of the SD card that matters, not the RAM.

Also, RealHotStuff still has Phat-sized 3in1s in stock if you want to get that.

Over at the official Supercard forum we're starting to suspect that the recent slot-2 Supercards from DX are fakes or clones, as there have been way too many people whose carts have died within a few weeks of receiving them, and the internal parts seem to differ slightly from the latest known "official" ones.

Yeah, I found a topic outlining it, different battery colour, different chip makes etc.

I know it doesn't run off the SD but I've noticed that loading games from my SCDSOne to my SCminiSd (which works for a few games) results in a lot more slowdown. Most notably in MK Super Circuit where the sprites flash like mad and its unplayable, oddly enough the NFS Underground 2 (a far more demanding game) runs with no slowdown issues (possibly to do with the fact its an amazing 3D game for a GBA)

Also, RealHotstuff costs $35 to ship to the UK, more than what the cart is actually worth. Anybody know a British Retailer selling EZ-Flash IVs? I am loath to use DX again after this.

The GBA starts up with its ROM interface set to a wait state of 4/2 cycles: it will wait 4 cycles for the first 16-bit word of a transfer and 2 cycles for each additional 16-bit word. Official GBA Game Paks are capable of a wait state of 3/1 cycles, and one of the first thing that an official game will usually do is reprogram the GBA's ROM interface to work at 3/1 wait state. However, the 32 MB RAM in the SuperCard does not work at 3/1; to allow games to work, the SuperCard patcher prevents the game from reprogramming the ROM interface. (If you have a DS, a SuperCard, and a SuperKey or other NoPass card, you can demonstrate this using memtestARM: the RAM tests will fail for any speed faster than 4/2.)

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Since the SCDS only launches clean GBA roms, my guess is that this extra patching step is never done, causing further slowdowns. That, combined with the lack of saving when doing this, makes it fairly pointless to launch GBA games from the SCDS menu.

I don't understand the point in running DS ROMs off the slot-2 GBA cart, if you're launching them from a slot-1 card... what is the point in this ancient method, and are there any benefits in doing so these days? I ask because I have both an EZ-flash IV and an R4i Gold 3DS in my DS Lite... but launching DS games from slot 2 just seems pointless and redundant these days.